Have no fear! Spider Dress is here!

Attention ladies, here is the new-age thing that like those nude stilettos, LBD and tangerine lipstick will find the way to your wardrobe in the years to come. At CES 2015, Intel showcased its 3D robotic Spider Dress that is the extension of your intuition. Using its proximity and respiratory sensors, it protects the wearer. If somebody approaches you in an aggressive manner, its mechanical limbs would feel it and come into attacking and alert position. If somebody meets you calmly or romantically, the dress gets into smooth mode and portrays suggestively.

Well, if the prototype from Intel becomes a reality, women will finally be able to get rid of daily pestering. This Spider Dress is actually also a welcome break from the ridiculous and impractical ideas such as true love bra and rape preventing panties.

The brainchild of fashion-tech designer Anouk Wipprecht and backed up by Intel, the Spider Dress is powered by Edison, the computer module the size of postage stamp. A body-hugging bodice with black LED lights that look like the eyes of spider is what strikes you at first. The shoulder is made of extended mechanized robotics legs, which roll in both respiration sensor and proximity sensor. These sensors detect the breathing pattern of the wearer and analyze it accordingly for the nearing presence by glowing smoothly or flashing a warning sign. The pre-programmed biometrics is based on social norms and ills. The legs react to the stimuli in accordance with the pre-programmed data. These also keep moving, which is a bit creepy. Though, the legs are autonomous and are assisted by sensors yet these learn as well as adapt to wearer’s intuition over the time.

Anouk has made the first prototype of Spider Dress in January 2014 but it is the second version that utilizes Edison and 3D printing. She refers to Edison as the heartbeat of her creation as it has made the control, lead and analysis of the biometric signals possible in real-time without any delay.

Using these biometric signals, the spider system hosted on your body can detect up to 12 levels of behavior. Like arachnids, it detects the invasion of physical space and analyzes the friendly presence too.

With nine degrees of freedom on the shoulder plates, 20 servos for movement and proximity sensors working up to 23 feet, this dress indeed is a tech-fashion marvel. The 3D printing is done using Selective Laser Sintering mode and the dress is made of white nylon. The abstract geometric pattern on the dress took about 60 hours to finish and there are 40 parts that are fitted together to hold this exoskeleton dress. Because of the 3D technique and fabric, it is lightweight. As Edison runs the show, it is integrated in such a way that the machine is cooled off simultaneously. System wires are also secured and threaded into 3D design to keep the wearer safe. Since sensors are also neatly packed in the design, the wearer also does not have to deal with medical pads.

The Dutch designer’s tryst with tech is nothing new. She is the one who has created Synapse dress running on brainwave monitoring, Intimacy 2.0 and 3D printed Cirque du Soleil dresses. She joined hands with Intel to work on wearable stuff that extend beyond wrist wear. According to her, her dress is a badass as it does not conform to social norms. Along with Anouk, Intel’s New Devices Group and Philip H. Wilck of Studio Palermo contributed to the design and architect of the dress. Anouk terms this Spider Dress the most intricate creation of her as it runs on human emotions to great extent.

The Spider Dress is just a glimpse what wearable tech, fashion and robotics can do when they come together. The animatronic arachnid legs do not look fit enough to be adapted to day-to-day life but since it is a prototype, we can hope that the designer and Intel would sit together once to make it street-ready.

An MBA, a brand strategist and writer, Vinisha is hooked to technology. Trying to keep pace with ever-changing tech world, she keeps on writing to understand and analyze it from a user’s perspective. A hardcore movie buff and ‘Nirvana’ fan, she can be reached @vinisha_nirmal

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